EU, Barents- and Arctic parliamentarians to meet in Tromsø
The Second Northern Dimension Parliamentary Forum will take place in Tromsø, Northern Norway on February 22nd 2011.
The Forum was established in 2009 by the initiative of the European Parliament. The Forum has the aim to link the various parliamentary bodies working in the Northern Dimension region.
The meeting in Tromsø will be attended by members of the Russian State Duma, the Norwegian Storting, the European Parliament, other national parliaments within the Northern Dimension Region like the Baltic States and Iceland. Also, parliamentarians from both Canada and the United States are invited because of their Arctic interests.
The invitation is signed by the President of the Norwegian Storting, Dag Terje Andersen. It is emphasized that the Forum shall not take the shape of a new institution, but rather a recurrent place for representatives of parliamentarians already active within other bodies.
Other cross-border structures working in the north are invited, such as the Barents Council, the Council of the Baltic Sea States, the Arctic Council, the European Commission, the Nordic Council of Ministers and Ministers responsible for the Northern Dimension.
None of the existing regional parliamentarian networks in the north are included into the invitation list, such as the Barents Regional Council with representatives of the elected regional parliaments or county councils in the 13 member regions in the Barents cooperation.
